The outright distortions of fact and truth from those on the left wishing to raise taxes to build inefficient and costly light rail in the Triangle seem to have no end.
Karen Rindge, who heads up a so-called progressive organization WakeUp Wake County, says that raising the sales tax on all residents in Wake, Durham and Orange counties in support of building the $2.2 billion rail system is fair because "everyone is going to use the system."
Huh? Everyone?
Even the most optimistic projections from the Triangle Transit Authority (TTA) say that the trains will only carry 30,000 daily riders by the year 2030 (when the population of the Triangle is projected to be around 2,000,000). So how in the world is that "everyone"?
At most, trains will initially take 3% of the cars off the roads, which will quickly be made up by an increasing population, negating the benefits in just a couple of years.
So how does "everyone" use it?
This distortion of reality is nothing new for groups like WakeUp Wake who want to tax everyone and control where people can live and prosper. The group is nothing more than a bunch of central planners who think that they know best how to run other people's lives.
Let's reject this coming boondoggle of light rail in the Triangle. If these people were serious about public transportation, they'd be encouraging increased bus usage, which is both less expensive and able to be flexible to changing population patterns.
They want trains because they want to control where people live, where they work and how they travel. No tax is too great, no price is too high.
“At most, trains will initially take 3% of the cars off the roads, which will quickly be made up by an increasing population, negating the benefits in just a couple of years.”
Fun with math:
If you initially start with 100 cars, and remove 3%, you’re left with 97.
If you then quickly increase the population of cars back to 100, while leaving the 3% that were removed out of the population, you’re left with 100 cars, not 103.
I can’t dispute that 30,000 != Everyone, or that 30,000 != 2,000,000.
Also, if you listen to the interview, instead of just reading the excerpt, you’ll see that “everyone is going to use the system” refers to more than just trains.
I’ll agree with you before you respond, that everyone is NOT going to use the system. I bet she wishes she could rephrase the response to “everyone is going to benefit from the system”.
Everyone is not going to benefit though. But everyone is going to pay.
$2.2 billion tax increase to benefit 3% of the population.
I’m not going to try to argue that “everyone” is going to benefit, but I would argue that more than 3% of the population would benefit.
Actually only about 1.5% of the people will benefit. (30,000/2,000,000)
The remaining 98.5% of us will pay taxes so these few people can ride the train. And we will see virtually no reduction in traffic.
Buses are much more cost efficient and can more easily get people where they want to go since they aren’t on a fixed route.
But these rich white yuppies think they’re too good to ride the bus.
All of the areas that are to be served by building the trains are currently served by bus service. Are those buses full?
Those that benefit from riding the system need to pay for it.
Not drivers.
Not state taxpayers.
Not federal taxpayers.
The riders. And if it can’t pay for itself, then don’t build it. And it won’t, so we shouldn’t.
How do I know that it won’t pay for itself? Three quick reasons:
1. If it would be a good investment, Norfolk Southern would already be doing it.
2. None of these systems pay for themselves on an operating basis, let alone for the huge cost of capital they require.
3. Government entities running anything anywhere do a poor jobs. There may be small, individual bright spots, but I defy you to find any significant exception that invalidates this principal.
If we build this monstrosity, it will be a permanent millstone around the neck of taxpayers, who will be forced to pay for this boondoggle in perpetuity.